Hunter Pence

There's been a lot of buzz going around that the San Francisco Giants overpaid when they extended Hunter Pence via a five-year, $90 million deal.

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs sums up that argument by writing:

In the midst of an awful season, the San Francisco Giants made a preemptive strike to secure their future place in the NL West standings by agreeing to re-sign right fielder Hunter Pence to a five-year, $90 million contract on Saturday.

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that the San Francisco Giants have started negotiations with impending free-agent right fielder Hunter Pence.

Hunter Pence channeled his inner Hulk to blast the longest home run of the 2013 MLB season.

As Pence's San Francisco Giants took on the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night, Pence stepped up to the plate in the first inning with a runner on first and two outs.

There are a lot of players worthy of being selected to the 2013 MLB All-Star Game, but not all of them will make it.

Thirty-three players make the AL All-Star team, and 33 players make the NL All-Star team. That means that a mere 66 players make the initial team, which is extremely tiny when you consider that 750 players are currently on active MLB rosters.

Hunter Pence might need some help on the proper use of sunglasses. 

The Dodgers and Giants opened play on a sun-drenched Monday afternoon in Los Angeles. It was the kind of day that mandated some sun-shielding eye wear if you were ever going to skirt any amount of pop-fly disaster. 

Well, Pence flew too close to the sun and got burned, dropping a routine fly ball in the sixth inning, producing one of the first bloopers of the season. 

Every year, in sports, there are underrated players who break onto the scene with great performances.

And, every year, people try to predict who those players will be. And this year, I have some ideas.

Despite successful 2012 campaigns, these players aren't getting much attention for a variety of reasons. However, in 2013, they will be getting attention, for some good performances, in fantasy and real life. And then, they'll be shining in the bright lights of October.

But who will those players be? Well, why don't you find out.

When the San Francisco Giants acquired Hunter Pence just before this year's trade deadline, they took the first step toward repeating a horrible mistake. The second step of that process is already looking likely: there's talk of signing Pence to a long-term deal.

Last year at the trade deadline, the Philadelphia Phillies were 68-39, six games up in the NL East. This season, the Phils are just 45-57, 16.5 games out in the NL East and 13 games out in the wild-card race.

Needless to say, with the payroll over $174 million, second to the New York Yankees in MLB, expectations were high.

They have not come close to meeting those expectations.

The San Francisco Giants went into the trading deadline needing to fill three obvious areas of deficiency: a lack of power in the lineup, a lack of depth on the bench and in the bullpen due to the loss of closer Brian Wilson earlier this season.

For Giants' general manager Brian Sabean, two out of three wasn't bad.